Ukraine alleges that the Kremlin is on the brink of mobilizing another 300,000 troops later this year in order to make up for significant battlefield losses.
"Russia has lost 267,000 personnel since the start of the year, including around 155,000 killed to date," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed in remarks released Sunday. "We are confident that following the elections, they will carry out a mobilization. We believe this will not take place in the major cities."
Zelensky further asserted his belief that Putin would "deploy the 300,000 newly mobilized troops depending on the situation in the east of our country."
Neither side has ever issued public war casualty figures, and so Zelensky's claim of the massive number of Russia soldiers killed remains impossible to evaluate accurately.
But as for preparations for a new wave of mobilization on the Russian side, The Wall Street Journal says that this rings true. The publication has chronicled some anecdotal evidence, seeing signs of serious preparation.
"Last month Russian military officers flew from St. Petersburg to the country’s Kaliningrad exclave nestled between two NATO countries and the Baltic Sea," WSJ reports. "There the officers oversaw readiness planning and procedures for a mobilization of the region’s residents, with details on how to house, feed and arm them, said Western intelligence officials."
Speaking more of the Russian exclave, the report continues: "The planning exercise in Kaliningrad is just one of many being carried out nationwide, said the officials, in case the call is made."
Officials cited in the report have said no concrete decisions have been made as of yet, and which is unlikely to happen until after parliamentary elections in late September.
WSJ sees it as a sign that while Russian forces have clearly been able to hold territory gained in the Donbass region, it has come at a huge and grim cost:
In recent months, Moscow has failed to recruit enough new soldiers to make up for those killed and injured on the battlefield, while Ukrainian drone advances have reduced the average Russian soldier’s lifespan on the front to a matter of minutes, days or weeks. Those problems in manpower may leave Putin with no choice other than to order a fresh wave of mobilization not seen in years, U.S. and European officials said.
It must be remembered that on a legal-technical level, for Russia the Ukraine conflict remains only at the level of 'special military operation'. Some skeptics are calling the content of the WSJ piece largely propaganda.
Still, the fresh rumors of an imminent large-scale mobilization are already prompting signs of a potential exodus from Russia, WSJ further describes.
Below: Purported recent scene at the the Russia-Abkhazia border checkpoint...
Men of conscription age are reportedly seeking ways to leave the country, with neighboring Georgia and Armenia seeing real estate prices rise amid expectations that a new wave of Russian immigrants could arrive.
Moscow customs authorities reported that more than 20,000 people crossed the Georgian border in a single day last week - the highest figure on record. Notably though, Georgia’s Interior Ministry has rejected those figures.